


Reconciliation

by Twyd



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Arguing, Bitterness, Break Up, Communication Failure, Confusion, Established Relationship, Fights, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Makeup Sex, Masturbation, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, Reconciliation, Reconciliation Sex, Responsibility, Self-Doubt, Slash, Trust Issues, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 06:13:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13496438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twyd/pseuds/Twyd
Summary: "Shizuo doesn’t knock. He never knocks when he’s angry, and anyway, this has happened so many times now that he knows how to wrench open Izaya’s door without breaking it."





	Reconciliation

Shizuo doesn’t knock. He never knocks when he’s angry, and anyway, this has happened so many times now that he knows how to wrench open Izaya’s door without breaking it.

Izaya gives a start when this happens.

The informant is on his knees by the coffee table, sleeves up, painting over the wood where Shizuo had kicked it one time too many, and the reminder of this makes Shizuo even madder. Something comforting simmers on the stove, the washing machine is churning, and all this domesticity drives him crazy, like Izaya has deliberately set this up to mock him.

But Izaya is frowning, oblivious.

“What are you doing here?”

He puts down the paintbrush as he speaks and gets to his feet, pulling his sleeves back down over his arms.

“I got fired today.”

Izaya scarcely blinks.

“Good for you.”

Shizuo’s scowl deepens.

“I was fired because of you.”

“What?”

“They found out what happened at the last place.  Who else would tell them that? I was friends with the people who gave my references.”

Izaya shrugs, unconcerned.

“Employers can be very sneaky these days. They probably called the last place directly and asked to speak to the owner.”

“Then why wouldn’t they do that when they first hired me?” Shizuo argues. “Why now?”

“They were probably sick of you and looking for the excuse.”

Shizuo lunges forward and lifts him by the throat. At the same time, Izaya withdraws his knife and holds it against Shizuo’s neck. They stay their like that in a stalemate. It is first time Shizuo has done anything like this since they got together, and it is the first time being this close to Izaya since they broke up, and these conflicting emotions make it much worse.

“ _You_ got me fired,” he growls at Izaya.

“Really? You think I’d make a petty revenge call the minute you’re out the door?”

It is difficult for him to speak around Shizuo’s hand. He moves the knife to Shizuo’s fingers instead.

“Obviously you did.”

“I didn’t.” His free hand curls into Shizuo’s hair, his face suddenly mock-softenng into a smirk. “Are you sure you didn’t just need an excuse, Shizu-chan? Maybe you’re just missing me.”

Shizuo lips curl with dsgust. He opens his fist and lets Izaya drop to the floor, where he sits coughing for air.

“I hate you,” Shizuo says bitterly. “Stay out of my life.”

“Stay out of mine!” Izaya snaps back. He gets back up with murder in his eyes, and Shizuo has a sick twinge of déjà vu, remembering the last time Izaya had lost his temper with him, that he’d picked up the chair Shizuo had thrown at him and thrown it right back, and that had been the end of them. “I haven’t done anything, Shizuo. Don’t blame your problems on me when I haven’t done anything.”

“Then why didn’t you just say you hadn’t done anything? Why do you always fucking sneer at me?”

“Why do you never trust me?”

Shizuo opens his mouth to argue, when something makes him pause. Had they just, in two uncomplicated sentences, articulated exactly where it had gone wrong? Was it really that simple?

“I never trust you,” Shizuo repeats. “Does that really bother you so much?”

“Bother me? You’ve just broken in and choked me over something I didn’t do. It took you months to let me in your bed. You always thought everything was my fault, or that I was up to something.”

“Because you _did_ \- "

“Not behind your back. Not after we got together.”

His voice lowers, more resigned than angry.

Shizuo thinks about this, feeling the last of his own anger waver. He wonders if the sneering was partly his own fault, a way of Izaya keeping his distance when he’s hurt.

“Go away,” Izaya says now. “I have a headache.”

He replaces the lid on the paint and goes to sit on the couch, massaging his forehead. The washing machine stops, the sweet fragrance leaking into the room. It’s so unbearably familiar, Shizuo can almost see himself on the couch with Izaya’s head in his lap, stroking his hair.

“Maybe I did miss you,” he blurts.

Izaya glances at him morosely through his fingers.

“Go away.”

“Did you hear me?”

“I heard you. It’s too soon for any of that.”

“Too soon?”

Izaya sighs and drops his hands.

“You’ve only been gone five days. It’s always weird at first. You know. Sleeping alone, coming back to an empty house, all these…adjustments,” he continues. “You have to give it a bit longer before you know if you really miss someone or not.”

Shizuo stares at him, slightly hurt that Izaya is putting him off. Though he had to admit, the informant had a point.

“Well, how long do we have to give it, then?”

Izaya goes back to rubbing his head.

“I don’t know. It’s not like there’s a rule. A few weeks, a few months.”

Shizuo leaves feeling despondent. He shouldn’t have come. Self-righteous anger was better than guilt. Better than confusion over what he wanted. _Izaya_ had always been the peace-maker in their fights, the one to cajole him back to happiness. Maybe it's his turn now.

He keeps thinking about what Izaya had said, until he finds himself turning on his heel and walking back.

He very nearly opens the door again – he had lived here, after all – but stops himself just in time, and knocks.

_“Go away!”_

Shizuo sighs and continues to knock, determined to be civil.

Izaya yanks the door open with the knife in his hand.

“…that’s a bit of an overreaction, isn’t it?”

“I’m just saving time. This is how it always ends.”

“Can we talk?”

“No.”

“Please. Five minutes. I’m sorry I gave you a headache.”

Izaya rolls his eyes and let him in.

The pan is still on the stove, although it doesn’t look like it’s been touched.

“You can eat,” Shizuo tells him.

“I’m not eating now.”

Shizuo feels another stab of guilt, knowing he means it, knowing Izaya would go over hours without food when he was upset, often because of him.

“I was just thinking about things,” Shizuo says. “About getting back together.”

“Do I get a say in that?”

“You know what I mean. I was trying to figure out what I want.”

“That’s nice, but it’s like I said before, we need to give it time.”

“But what if you meet someone else?”

Izaya looks at Shizuo with a mix of exasperation and pity.

“I won’t meet someone else.”

Shizuo stares at him for a moment.

“This is what I need,” Shizuo says. “For you to say more things like that.  I know you do a lot for me, but I need you to say things as well. Sometimes you talk to me like you hate me.”

Izaya isn’t looking at him. He is looking at the coffee table he’d painted over.

“I fucking hate that table,” he says now. “I don’t know why I’m painting it. Even when you’re not here I feel like throwing it. I’m going to get rid of it.”

Shizuo looks at the unoffending object, feeling a little sorry for it.

“It’s a nice table."

Izaya laughs, and Shizuo feels something loosening in his chest at the sound of it. But then Izaya is getting up and showing Shizuo out. The knife, at least, is long gone.

-

It had hurt, breaking up with Izaya. _Like cutting bits off yourself_ , Shizuo had heard Izaya say to Shinra on extracting themselves from each other's lives, which wasn’t far off. Maybe one big bit, half of him or more. A month later and it still hurts.

Shizuo tries to distract himself. He sees friends, sees movies, goes through the motions until he can't stand it any more.

What had Izaya said? A few weeks, a  few months. So one month was the perfect compromise.

-

At Izaya’s apartment, Shizuo lets himself in again, catching himself a moment too late. He’s about to pull the door closed again and knock, but feels foolish. The lights are on, but he can’t see Izaya anywhere. Shizuo knocks gently on the inside of the door to announce himself.

“Izaya…?”

He looks up the stairs, but all the rooms are in darkness. He wonders if Izaya had gone out and left the lights on, but he’d never done that before.

Shizuo’s about to give up and leave, when he’s seized with the idea that Izaya could have hurt himself, that he’s lying unconscious on the floor where he’d been for who knew how long. Before he knew what he was doing, Shizuo is in the living room, striding faster as he gets closer to the couch, bracing himself for the worst.

Izaya is not unconscious. Or rather, he is, but the more innocent kind. He is asleep.

Shizuo breathes a shaky laugh of relief. Of course, Izaya is napping. He keeps funny hours. _You’re so stupid,_ Shizuo chides himself, but he’s still smiling with relief. 

It fades quickly when he realises Izaya won’t appreciate his concern if he wakes up. Shizuo hovers for a moment, not wanting to leave him. Izaya is so beautiful, it almost hurts to look at him. Shizuo can’t cover him with anything without giving his visit away, so he settles for turning up the thermostat a touch, and closes the door gently behind him. He’ll come back tomorrow.

-

He’s convinced Izaya will somehow know he was there, but the informant is oblivious when he turns up. He goes at the same time, when Izaya is likely to have finished work but not started to relax yet. If it goes well, maybe they could eat together.

“How are you?” Shizuo asks him.

“All right,” he says, stretching. “I was about to take a nap. How are you?”

“Fine,” he says quickly, hoping he’s not blushing. He’s always been terrible at keeping secrets.

He’d been trying to find a job. Last time he was in this situation – when it was doubtlessly his own fault (he’d yelled at a customer) – Izaya had helped him through it, had improved his CV and helped him find places to apply for and had been there for moral support, hadn’t let him take a low salary or something he hated. Thinking about all this now hurts.

“How’ve you really been?” he says. 

“Oh, you know,” Izaya says. “Pretty depressed.”

He believes it, knows Izaya is capable of locking himself up with work and very little else for days on end.

Outside, the rain gets harder, sounding so much more brutal at their height than it would on the ground.

“Looks like you’re staying,” Izaya remarks.

-

Shizuo sleeps next to him that night. Not holding each other, but side by side, and Shizuo wakes up even closer, his arm around Izaya’s waist. He’s missed this, missed sleeping here and waking up to sky out the windows, being higher than the other buildings. 

Izaya wakes up and makes a little noise of content.

“Fuck, I’ve missed this,” he murmurs. “Even more than the sex, I think.”

Shizuo tries to kiss him, but he moves back, getting out of bed.

“Let’s not,” he says.

“Why?”

Izaya goes into the bathroom before he can answer. Shizuo hears him running a bath.

Knowing he can be a while, Shizuo lets himself drift.

-

He has no idea how much time has passed when he wakes up, but the bathroom door is still closed when Shizuo leaves the room. He wonders if the informant has fallen asleeo in the bath.

Izaya is not in the bath. He is leaning against the wall, soaking wet, masturbating. At least, he was. Now he is staring at Shizuo in shock, dick in hand, and rapidly turning red.

“I…”

Shizuo kisses him, and doesn’t let Izaya push him away.

-

Shizuo wakes a little later, wrapped around Izaya properly. He nuzzles the informant’s forehead when he feels him waking up, conscious that they’ve done little but sleep since he arrived.

“I didn’t come over just to take a nap, y’know,” he says.

“Napping’s good,” Izaya mumbles. Outside, the rain is still unforgiving. “And it sounds like you’re not going anywhere for a while.”


End file.
